School teacher held for pic showing him abusing girl in classroom

GUWAHATI, Aug 6: A school teacher of a private high school in Assam’s Hailakandi district was arrested by police under Section 8 of POCSO and a few other Acts following a photograph going viral on social media in the past few days showing him hugging a girl inside a classroom. Assam education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the teacher has been arrested for his “reprehensible act of exploiting children.”

Faizuddin Laskar (37), a teacher of a private high school under Lala police station was arrested under Section 192 of the IPC, Section 67 of the IT Act and Section 8 of POCSO after it was ascertained that he was the same person who figured in the photograph that was in circulation in the social media, Hailakandi SP Pranab Jyoti Goswami said. The school is about 70 kms from Hailakandi.

“The teacher has admitted to the act, and said that he had himself asked another girl of the same class to take several photographs where he was holding the victim girl in various positions. Faizuddin Laskar also admitted that while he had proposed to marry the girl, her parents fixed her marriage with another person. Following that he had tried to use the photographs to break that marriage by engaging another man to show the photographs to the groom’s parents, but the other person apparently did not do so,” SP Goswami said.

The girl, who had taken her Class X board exams earlier this year, meanwhile has been married off with her parents claiming she was 18 years old when her marriage took place, the SP said. “Her parents claimed she was already 18 when she was married off. While we are still trying to find out her age records, it is clear that she was a child when she was sexually abused by the teacher,” SP Goswami said. “The photographs were taken about 8 to 10 months ago, but appeared in the social media in the past one week,” he said.

The police meanwhile are on the look-out for several other persons including the person whom Faizuddin Laskar had engaged to show the photographs to the girl’s in-laws even as her marriage was being fixed. “We have yet to locate the person whom Laskar had given the photographs to show to the girl’s would-be in-laws when her marriage was fixed a few months ago,” the SP said. The police are also in the process of identifying the person who had first uploaded it on social media following which it had gone viral.

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THE HILLS TIMES

The Hills Times, a largely circulated English daily published from Diphu and printed in Guwahati, having vast readership in hills districts of Assam, and neighbouring Nagaland, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur.